A recently unearthed Michelangelo sketch, considered to be the artist’s first nude, has sold at Christie’s Paris for a record 23 million euros ($24 million). “Michelangelo has decided to make the figure into something that corresponded more to his aesthetic by making him much more robust and monumental, while at the same time keeping the fragility of the figure, who is exposed and shivering” as he awaits baptism,” says Christie’s Old Masters expert Stijn Alsteens.
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Jose Berardo
Collector’s Birthdate: b. 1944
Berardo is a Portugese businessman who has amassed a fortune worth over $1 billion from, gold mining in South Africa. He is also an active stock trader. Recently, he opened up his extensive art collection to the public, displaying works by artists like Picasso, Dali and Miro at the newly opened Museu Berardo in the Centro Cultural de Belem in Lisbon.
Though auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s have pursued his collection, valued at more than $400 million, he has never sold a work of art. Other artists included in his extensive collection of over 1,000 works include Pop Art by the likes of Warhol and Lichtenstein, Realist pieces by Bacon and Balthus as well as several works by Minimalist artists. In 2007, he tried to purchase the futbol club S.L. Benfica.
